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Full-Day Product Owner Simulation Exercise

This simulation exercise rests on the idea that people learn a lot better by doing something than by talking about it. My Product Owner classes were getting great reviews, but I really felt like there was something missing compared to my ScrumMaster classes which have a full-day ScrumMaster simulation exercise. It took a little while to figure it out, but this article describes in detail how I do the simulation for the Product Owner class. I’m sure it will evolve and get refined from here since I have only used the simulation twice so far.

NOTE: Permission to use this exercise / print associated materials is granted with a simple request: please link to this page on your blog, in a LinkedIn group or Google group, like it on Facebook etc. or write a comment in our comments section!

Room Setup: Round tables with 4 to 6 chairs at each table. Materials distributed to each table.

Agenda (with facilitator’s notes):

Lecture: Simulation Overview, Backlog Preparation and RefinementThe purpose of the overall simulation is to learn to create a good Product Backlog in preparation for a Scrum team’s first Sprint. Review the agenda with participants.

Discussion: What Makes a Great Product Vision?Ask for the group to brainstorm the qualities of a great product vision. Ensure that “simplicity”, “urgency”, and “emotion” are all mentioned. (Great reference: “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip and Dan Heath.)

Discussion: Choosing a Product for the SimulationGive participants four product options (suggested options: “Doggy dating web site”, “iPad app for plastic surgeons”, “POS for food trucks with social features”, or come up with your own app idea). A table group must agree to one of the options. They will stick with this product for the remainder of the simulation. 5 minutes to decide (usually takes much less).

Lecture: Innovation Games – Product BoxProduct Box Handout [PDF]Talk about the need for a compelling vision as a pre-requisite for high-performance teams, and a way to decide what is in vs. out of a Product Backlog. Introduce “Product Box” as a way to do market research in an Agile compatible way (collaborative, light documentation, quick). Talk about the pattern of a product box: front to attract, back to showcase, sides to deal with objections. Use of online resources / web research is allowed but should not dominate the exercise.

Exercise: Building Your Product30 minutes, with warnings at 15 minutes and 5 minutes remaining. Ensure that by 10 minutes in, the group has actually started using the craft supplies and isn’t just talking.

Exercise: Presenting Your Product5 minutes – give additional time to allow groups to prepare for a trade show (in their market) presentation where other groups (or yourself) will role-play sceptical trade show participants.

Lecture: User CategoriesDescribe “end users”, “customers” and “admin users” as the three major categories. Users can be in hierarchies where a general user type may have two or more specific sub-types.

Exercise: Identifying Users10 minutes. One user of each main type (end, admin and cust), at least 5 users in total. More is okay.

Lecture: Personas, Usability and EmpathyIntroduce Persona concept (great reference: “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” by Alan Cooper). Usability as part of Agile, not separate (i.e. “working software”). Identifying personas as a way to build empathy from the development team to the end users/customers.

Exercise: Generate a Persona10 minutes. Choose a primary user. Generate name, age, background story, and relationship to product. Don’t worry about an image. Try to be specific and write the background so it emphasizes the concept of empathy.

Lecture: Writing Effective User StoriesUse the example “As a Job Seeker, I can upload my resume, so that I get a job.” Explain the user story template based on the handout. Emphasize the idea of end user functionality. Explain user stories as an important tool, but optional part of Scrum.

Exercise: Create User StoriesGoal: 20 user stories for each group’s product, at least two user stories for each type of user, all done in 20 minutes. User Stories must be written on 3×5 note cards with a 2cm blank area on right side of each card. The groups start by writing one or two User Stories together, then divide and conquer to create the rest. At the end of the 20 minutes, there is a brief amount of time allocated to making sure there are no duplicated “features” described.

Discussion: Review User StoriesWorkshop examples from each group. Ensure that the “benefit” section of each story does not contain a feature. Possibly discuss the three parts of a User Story as “who”, “what” and “why”. The benefit is usually related to time, money or happiness and connects the User Story to the product vision.

Lecture: Splitting User StoriesGo through each of the “top” six splitting methods. Provide simple examples where the group needs help. E.g. error conditions as an example of splitting by business logic.

Exercise: Split SomeGoal: result in at least 30 user stories, use each of the top six splitting methods at least once, give 15 minutes.

Discussion: Review Splitting

Part 4: Estimation and Financial Modelling

Lecture: Effort, Value and ROICustomers and business stakeholders estimate value, Scrum team members estimate effort, and ROI is the calculation of the ration of value over effort. Discuss examples of ordering based on these ratios, e.g. 8/2 vs. 8/4 and 200/20 vs. 20/2.

Exercise: Estimating Effort20 minutes. Goal: estimate 3 user stories using the Planning Game. Use the Bucket System to estimate the remainder with the ones already estimated as the reference points.

Discussion: Debrief the Planning Game

Handout: Methods of Ordering the Product Backlog

Lecture: Ordering a Product BacklogReview ROI as a method to order the PBIs. Reminder that the Product Owner has final authority and can ignore the estimates in deciding on the order.

Exercise: Calculating ROI and Ordering5 minutes. Just simple divide-and-conquer calculations of business value divided by effort for all the user stories.

Lecture: Simulation Wrap-Up – Where Does This Fit?Reminder of the idea of creating an initial Product Backlog that is “good enough” to start the first Sprint.

NOTE: Permission to use this exercise / print associated materials is granted with a simple request: please link to this page on your blog, in a LinkedIn group or Google group, like it on Facebook etc. or write a comment in our comments section!

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About Mishkin Berteig

Mishkin Berteig is a Baha'i, a father of four, a husband and an experienced Agile consultant and trainer. Mishkin is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) with the Scrum Alliance, a certified Master of OpenAgile with the OpenAgile Centre for Learning and a certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) with the Scaled Agile Academy. Mishkin has a technical background including a B.Sc. in Computer Science and worked as a Chief Architect reporting to the CIO of Charles Schwab, but gave it up to be more Agile.